Sunday, February 20, 2011

Blog Prompt #16-18

“I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.” Duane Michals

I think that it is important for both types of photos to exist: provocative and the ordinary. Ordinary photos are important because they document our history and can be used to look back upon at a later point in time. Provocative photos are important too though because photography is an art and thus should be taken up with a creative approach as well as merely trying to document a moment.

“I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.” Duane MichalsI like this quote, and I somewhat agree. However, I don't think that what you cannot see is MORE important, I think that it is just as equally important. In order to have a basis to let your imagine jump off of, you need to be able to see at least something in the photograph. If you couldn't see anything, you wouldn't have a photograph to begin with.

“Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” Arnold NewmanI also somewhat agree with this quote. Photography can play tricks on your mind and make you believe that you see something that you really don't because it captures such a small fraction in time. We create our own 'private world' from a photograph because each of our experiences allows us to take away something different from a photo and to interpret the emotions and feelings it conveys differently.